ELTAI Business English SIG workshop conducted at Bangalore on 8-7-16 by Ms. Lalitha Murthy.
Feedback from a participant--Ms. Snitha Sail

ELTAI Business English SIG successfully conducted its first workshop on "Enhancing professional Communication skills” sponsored by the CSR dept. of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. Bangalore, on 8th July 2017. The event brought together academicians from different parts of the country and the professionals from TCS to deliberate over the need and relevance of teaching professional communication skills in improving the employability of  graduates.

Lalitha Murthy's very insightful session on 'Professional Communication skills- from an English teacher to a Business English trainer- Strengths and Challenges- helped us look beyond classroom teaching, and taught us dynamics of effective teaching of professional communication skills. She laid a special emphasis on etiquettes in business writing skills, by citing email as an example. She also brought to the front the differences in language used in different forms of writing. In her second session on "Impact of culture on language and communication", Lalita Murthy emphasized the need of becoming aware of and sensitive to cross-cultural differences in a professional environment.

Jayashree Menon demonstrated the effectiveness of task based teaching of business English and kept the audience captivated with several tasks and activities that taught the differences in register.

Dolon Gupta, Global Head, Culture and language Initiatives, TCS Ltd. in her session on "Requirement Gathering in a business context" gave us an insider's view on the prerequisites of a good trainer. Some of the few tips she gave included the significance of knowing the demographics of one's audience, inquiring about the venue of training, understanding the requirements and purpose of the training program and optimizing the time duration of one's training. Her recommendations shall help the participants immensely in becoming more effective teachers.

The warm and yet professional aura created by the organizers added to its successful conduct and made it both memorable and informative for the participants.

 Smita  Sail, Asst professor,

Amrita School of Engineering

Bengaluru.

ELTAI, India.

 NATIONAL WORKSHOP ON ‘ACADEMIC WRITING’

            The English Language Teachers’ Association of India (ELTAI) as part of its strategy to enrol members by offering teachers free teacher development programmes , recently conducted a free workshop on ‘Academic writing’ or 20 selected teachers—one from each of its chapters-- and they were required to conduct a similar workshop in their respective regions and thus strengthen their chapters. It may be pointed out that, with a similar objective in view, two other workshops—one on ‘Virtual learnng’ and another on ‘Mobile learning’ were earlier conducted

The Workshop on ‘Academic Writing’ was conducted on 07/01/2016 and 08/01/2016  at the Annammal College of Education for Women, Thoothukudi in South India.

At each of the four sessions conducted, there was  first a brief presentation by a resource person, followed by ‘hands on experience’ on the part of the participants.

Training was given in the following academic writing skills:

1.     Writing a paper for a professional journal.

2.     Making a presentation.

3.     Writing a research proposal and report. 

4.     Writing a project proposal and report.

In the session on ‘Writing a paper for a professional journal’,  the participants were first  given two research papers and asked to analyze their quality. The observations made during this exercise helped them understand the quality parameters for a good research article.

It was followed by discussion in the whole group.  

In the session on ‘Making a presentation’, the following areas  were covered::

1.     Preparing for a conference presentation

2.     Delivering a conference presentation

3.     Responding to comments and questions

4.     Preparing for oral presentations

5.     Structure of an oral presentation

6.     Checklists for presentation

The resource person also  provided a lot of tips for successful conference and oral presentation.

In the session on ‘Writing Research Reports’ , the  following areas were  covered:

1.     Features of academic English

2.     Academic language styles

3.     Documentation styles

Participants were  provided examples in respect of  choice of words, grammar, signposting and hedging. The resource person also  pointed out common errors in academic English. The participants were given small tasks to be done in groups to understand academic language styles.  The groups were finally asked to present a summary of the discussion in a chart.

In another session, participants were trained in writing a project proposal and report. The following areas were covered:

1.     Need for writing a proposal

2.     Kinds of proposal for projects

3.     Format for proposal writing

4.     Funding agencies for projects

5.     Project for book publishing

The delegates were divided into groups of four. Each group was asked to choose a project title from a list given and asked to draft a proposal , stating its importance,  objectives, methodology, budget, timeframe and evaluation of outcomes..

Feedback.

All the participants termed the workshop  highly useful.